Apex Legends Season 20 Patch Notes [2024]

Apex Legends Season 20 Patch Notes: Apex Legends Season 20 brings major changes to the battle royale game by Respawn Entertainment. This season introduces a new legend named Hive, map updates to Storm Point and Olympus, the new Nock gun weapon, Ranked Reloaded changes, bug fixes, and various quality of life improvements. As Apex Legends approaches its 5 year anniversary, Season 20 showcases the continued evolution of the game.

New Legend – Hive

Hive is the new playable legend added in Apex Legends Season 20. Their real name is Yamato Silva, a former IMC biologist who now has the ability to command a swarm of techno-organic bees through a specialized suit.

Hive’s passive ability is called Swarm Sense which allows them to see loot and enemies highlighted through walls up to 20 meters away whenever a swarm bee is near it. Their tactical ability, Bee Swarm, deploys a swarm of bees that chase down enemies, obscuring vision and slowly damaging armor and health over time.

The ultimate ability, The Hive, throws out a hive device that generates a large swarm of bees around it. Allies within the swarm gain boosted healing, while enemies get vision obscured and receive accumulating damage. Destroying the hive device itself will eliminate the swarm. Overall, Hive brings new teamplay and strategic elements through the use of their innovative bee swarm powers.

New Weapon – Nock Gun

The Nock gun is a new hybrid weapon that combines shotgun and bow mechanics. It fires arrow-like metal projectiles using shotgun shells for ammunition. Players can hold down the fire button to draw back the Nock gun string further, charging up the shot for additional range and damage.

The Nock gun shines in mid-range combat, offering more consistency and ammo capacity compared to the existing shotguns. It takes shotgun ammo, scopes, hop-ups, and magazines. The arrows can also stick and accumulate on surfaces, giving players options to ricochet shots or pre-load traps. Its unique arrow-shooting shotgun hybrid style adds more diversity to the weapon roster.

Map Updates – Storm Point and Olympus

Apex Legends Season 20 also introduces map updates to both Storm Point and Olympus. Storm Point receives changes around the Barometer and Lightning Rod areas, with installations of Phase Portals that teleport players between the locations. These add rotational gameplay options and variability to the map’s flow.

Olympus gets the return of the Grow Towers – massive towering lush gardens dotted around. However, the towers now include a series of horizontal ziplines spanning across them, enabling aggressive aerial plays. Trickshotting across the Grow Towers brings fresh combat engagement opportunities.

Ranked Reloaded Changes

Significant updates arrive to the competitive Ranked mode with Ranked Reloaded. Among them is a reduction in the entry costs across all ranks, making progression a bit faster for skilled players. Assist streak kills now also grant meter progress to minimize early fights randomizing rankings as much.

To promote teamwork, a new ally respawn system arrives where squadmates can spend materials to bring back an eliminated ally. Players will want to balance prudently using resources for respawns versus their own upgrades. Expect more united squads sticking together till the end as a result.

Quality of Life Improvements

For quality of life, Apex Legends Season 20 adds a variety of accessibility and convenience updates. Colorblind settings receive additional options for better visibility. A new ping wheel communication system is implemented as well, streamlining callout commands via the ping interface.

There is now also a firing range tutorial onboarding mode available for new players to practice shooting, map traversal, looting, and other basics risk-free. For convenience, players can favorite weapon skins and legend skins to rotate them more easily. With continued polish, the game becomes more welcoming for players of all skill levels.

New Battle Pass

The Season 20 Battle Pass brings over 100 exclusive limited-time cosmetics to unlock across the tiers – legend/weapon skins, Apex Packs, crafting metals, emotes, charms, and more. This Battle Pass has an extraterrestrial outer space theme, including sci-fi weapon skins like the Nova Guass Havoc, and alien-inspired legend skins such as the Graphtane skin for Octane.

Of note is that the Level 100 tier Battle Pass reward is an Heirloom set for Mad Maggie featuring a electrified axe and salvo of grenades. Those who progress through the whole pass can permanently add this vibrant mythic cosmetic heirloom to their collection. The space opera flavor provides exciting rewards to work towards this season.

Bug Fixes and Optimizations

Besides new content and features, Apex Legends Season 20 also contains a wide span of bug fixes and game optimizations. Audio issues regarding incorrect space/distance cues on gunfire have been addressed. A problem causing inaccurate knockdown shield colors is now also resolved.

On improvements, the report player interface has been streamlined to make the process quicker. Load times when first launching the game have also been sped up roughly 12% quicker. Low profile legends now have 5% reduced incoming damage too. In all, a mix of fixes and polish tweaks ship this season.

The Future of Apex Legends

Now celebrating its 5 year anniversary, Apex Legends continues proving itself as a top contender in the games-as-a-service genre. Season 20 demonstrates the consistent content pipeline and Laser focus on community-driven updates that retain millions of dedicated players.

Looking ahead, the future is bright for Apex Legends as it expands to new platforms like Nintendo Switch and Mobile later this year. Further unique legends, weapons, stories, and environments will arrive with each new season. And the competitive esports circuit grows grander, cementing Apex as a permanent fixture in gaming for the long term.

Conclusion:

Apex Legends Season 20 brings impactful changes through the new legend Hive, Nock gun weapon, map updates, ranked changes, Battle Pass content, and a wide assortment of other enhancements. This season ushers in the 5 year milestone in style for Respawn Entertainment’s acclaimed free-to-play battle royale shooter. Expect Apex Legends to continue upping the ante and refinement of the last-team-standing formula for seasons to come.

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